Random Detox » Dapitan

Dapitan the Beautiful

Flisha — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 17:00:00 +0000

I don’t remember uploading these photos of the last time I was in Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte. That was about three months ago. Although I do not miss my very poor living quarters there, I do miss the beautiful, relaxing sights of Dapitan.

Nature never let you forget her majesty in Dapitan. It was easy to just let the romantic days wrap themselves all over you… ’til you forgot that there was more to living than the here and now.

So… enjoy these photos.

Tags: Dapitan, Photography, Zamboanga, Zamboanga

Big Bites Burger

Flisha — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 05:31:00 +0000

This is a guest post from my boyfriend Gim. Here to talk about his favorite pastime: good eats. – Flisha

I looove burgers. I especially like the meaty, juicy ones. Not the paper-thin slices that they serve at the school canteen or at the 3M burger stand beside the plaza in Dapitan; although these paltry snacks would sometimes do if I were really desperate for something to eat. The former ’cause it’s dirt cheap and the latter ’cause it’s the only fastfood joint open 24/7 in Dapitan.

No, these are not the burgers I prefer. According to a friend of mine, they’re made of cheapie-patties. A nearly transparent circle of meat that’s put in between bread just so you could call it a burger.

No, the ones I like are the ones that make you go “mmmmm!” with every bite. Like the burgers in Big Joe’s in Dipolog. Or more recently, the ones in Big Bite Burger House located beside the Catribo Complex here in Zamboanga City.

We (Flisha and I) visited the place yesterday on a tip from a classmate. And true enough, the burgers were scrumptious! I got the cheeseroom burger while she got the rodeo burger. (Sorry for the blurred pics! I was too excited to focus.)

Although the patties themselves were not as thick as I wanted them to be (but considerably thicker than the average burger patty), it was as juicy as can be with just a hint of smoke and charcoal, a result no doubt of the charcoal grill used in cooking the patties.

This isn’t how they normally cook their patty. They usually do it on an electric griller. But for an additional five pesos ($0.10), they prepare your patty in an honest to goodness charcoal grill. The mushroom and cheese in my burger as well as the fried onion ring in hers made for a delicious filling. So the next time you get that burger craving, be sure to pop in at Big Bite’s Burger.

Come to think of it, I wonder if using the charcoal grill is actually energy efficient?

Big Bites Burger can be found beside Catribo Complex along Governor Alvarez St, Zamboanga City.

Tags: Dapitan, Dipolog, Foods, Zamboanga, Zamboanga

Best Restaurant in Dipolog

Flisha — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:00:00 +0000

It’s Grandma’s Best, hands down.

In fact, I think it’s the best restaurant in Zamboanga del Norte, and after tasting their Squid Aligue Spaghetti, I’m tempted to say it’s the best restaurant in all of Philippines. Except that I haven’t visited all of Philippines yet.

Grandma’s Best is hidden in a residential part of Dipolog, which makes it a bit hard to find, as coming from Dapitan, Gim and I had to navigate through many roads just to find the elusive little canteen of a restaurant.

There is nothing to boast about the facade of Grandma’s Best, as it looks like an ordinary carenderia. The tables are simple rectangular plastic tables covered with cheaplooking cloth, the chairs are uncomfortable monoblock plastic white chairs, the walls are unadorned except for a few paintings here and there.

Service is nothing special. The waitresses look like that spinster aunt of yours who’s looking after your house while you’re gone (in her pink shirt and jeans). Water is available, but you have to get it yourself in the water dispenser at the back of the room.

But I’m not dissing this wonderful little restaurant. I’m simply amazed that a restaurant that looks so ordinary that it can easily be mistaken for a canteen (unless you happen to glance at the fridge that contains all of their rich-looking desserts) can serve such wonderfully fantastically delicious and divine dishes.

Grandma’s Best dishes I’ve tried and I swear are to die for:

Squid Aligue Spaghetti (Php80)

This scrumptious dish is soooo rich you’ll want to come back everyday to Grandma’s Best for a retaste. It’s filled with squid rings and pasta mixed in a rich and creamy sauce of sinful aligue (crab fat), topped with loads of cheese and freshly cut spring onion. It’s a disservice to call this dish “spaghetti” because it resembles nothing like spaghetti, but more like pasta for the gods, it is that rich.

Lengua (Php120)

I have always loved lengua (literally means tongue, but as a dish it means tongue of cow), and when I saw this dish in the menu, I ordered it right away. The dish I was served did not disappoint me in any way (except that it was served in a rectangular plastic container, but ah who cares if the food tastes great, huh?). The lengua was very soft, and swimming in a bowl of richly creamy mushroom sauce, and bursting with the dark, deep taste of beef. It’s definitely one of my favorites.

Beef Stroganoff (Php100)

You can take this with rice, or with pasta. Gim ordered this dish, and he chose pasta. I had only a few bites of this but I can say with all my heart I wish we had ordered two of these so I could have eaten a whole dish on my own! It may look like squid aligue spaghetti, but tastes nothing like it. It’s soft, tender beef mixed with creamy pasta topped with spring onions.

Apple Pie (Php60)

This dessert is definitely one of the best I have ever experienced. My mom bakes the best apple pies I’ve ever tasted, and I was shocked to find out this pie we had just bought was even better! The best part about this pie is the delightfully crumbly upper crust, which tastes faintly of cinammon and confectionary sugar, and the underside covered with lovely apple sauce. Inside of the cake are apple slices which taste heavenly. The normally strong taste of apple is subdued and the apple slices are soft and tender, just the way I like it. The whole minipie is topped with cheese, and the serving is good for two. This dessert is a must-try if you’re ever going to eat at Grandma’s Best.

Lastly, I also recommend their Roast Beef (Php110), however I don’t have pictures of that since I ate it the first time around, when I wasn’t bringing a camera. (It tastes a lot like lengua.)

More pictures of the above dishes:

Grandma’s Best dishes I’m looking forward to sampling in the very very near future:

Cheese Lumpia (Php55)
Chili con Carne (Php75)
Garlic Mushroom (Php65)
Seafood BBQ (Php120)
Seafood Supreme (Php125)
Thai Fried Rice (Php100)
Pistachio Cake Slice (Php55)
Trouffle Supreme Whole (Php380)

Tags: Dapitan, Dipolog, Foods, Photography, Zamboanga

Travel Zamboanga to Dapitan

Flisha — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 07:56:00 +0000

To travel Dapitan, Zamboanga (Philippines) and vice versa, you can go three ways: by air, land and sea.

Via Air

The safest option is, of course, via air. But as there’s no available direct flight from Zamboanga to Dipolog (but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), you would have to fly from Zamboanga to Cebu, then Cebu to Dipolog via Cebu Pacific. From Dipolog airport (do a little bit of shopping in Dipolog if you need to, you won’t be able to do it in Dapitan), you can take a tricycle straight to your destination in Dapitan for an exorbitant fee of Php150. Alternatively, you can walk to the street right outside of the airport, flag down a passing (not waiting) tricycle and get a ride to the bus terminal for only Php7. Then get on an Evergood bus and it will take you to Dapitan for Php20.

Via Sea

If you choose to go via sea, make sure it’s not the rainy season (August – December) because boats tend to capsize around this time of the year. If you have to, bring a vest and a snorkel. (I’m not kidding.) A little ferry from GP Lines travels from Zamboanga to Dapitan and vice versa, and costs less than Php1000 per passenger. The length of the trip is usually around 24 hours. From the port of Dapitan, you can take a tricycle to your destination for some exorbitant fee like Php200 (make sure to haggle heavily to lower the price!).

Via Land

The most common option for people traveling from Zamboanga to Dapitan is to take the bus. A one-way trip from Zamboanga to Dipolog on an airconditioned bus costs about Php400, while a non-AC bus costs Php300. From the Dipolog bus terminal, switch to the Evergood bus which will take you to Dapitan.

Via Stupid

The crazy and lifethreatening way to travel from Zamboanga to Dapitan is by motorcycle. It’s a four hour trip to the “nearby” city of Ipil, then another five hours to Dapitan. And that’s if you don’t stop periodically along the way because your butt is hurting so bad you want to kill your boyfriend for ever suggesting the trip as a “joyride”.

However, there are some nice spots along the way that you just have to stop and take a picture of, because. Like, for example, a rainbow over the ocean. Sometimes, a rainbow is just a rainbow. But when you have travelled for over two hours in the pouring rain on a motorcycle wearing a bright pink plastic trashbag that you bought for twenty pesos from a fisherman, got mud splattered all over your favorite green cottonskinned backpack and staining your pretty blue rubber shoes, and are carrying a large duffel bag about 10 kilos worth of rainsoaked garments on one side, your laptop and your backpack hanging from your aching back that hasn’t rested for seven hours running, plus your camera on the other side…. Sometimes a rainbow is not just a rainbow. Sometimes a rainbow is a calm capresso from God telling you that murder is not the answer, and that this too shall pass.

Not that I ever endured those things because my mother specifically told me that I should be taking the bus to Dipolog, and she even mandated earlier I should take an airplane even if she had to pay my fare but I lipbitingly declined because I really shouldn’t be taking her money and instead should be responsible for my own expenses. So… I was. Via… erm… bus. Not via my newly bought refurbished Honda XL named Bastian (because I sold Pao a long time ago, and he wouldn’t have survived the trip anyways) that my boyfriend drove to Dapitan in both hours under the pouring rain and hours under the burning sun that scalded my skin and soaked all my clothes. Nope, ohno she didn’t.

P.S. The waves were wonderful.

Tags: Dapitan, Dipolog, Photography, Travelogue, Zamboanga, Zamboanga

Sandbars in Dapitan

Flisha — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 11:26:00 +0000

Sometimes the shores of Dapitan City, Zamboanga del Norte, Philippines seem infinite. What you’re seeing above is a piece of ocean real estate. The tide recedes so low that at times the shore stretches as far as the eye can see.

That’s the village city of Dapitan beyond the shore. The sand is shaped like that because of the action of the waves brushing against the ocean floor.

Gim walked for about ten minutes just to reach the end of the sandbar.

The shore glistens with little rocks and pebbles. There were a lot of snails too.

That’s Gim inspecting the waters of Dapitan.

See how far he is already?

And a wonderful surprise – a beautiful piece of shell stranded on the shore.

Tags: Dapitan, Photography, Zamboanga

Buklod sa Dapitan

Flisha — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:17:00 +0000

A friend alerted me to this new website called Buklod sa Dapitan. It’s a travel agency dedicated to touring Dapitan.

It costs P2,700 per person for a Monday-Wednesday tour and P3,700 otherwise (minimum of 10 persons though). Included in the package are tours of Gloria de Dapitan and the famous Rizal Shrine plus a 2 night stay at Dakak Resort.

Airfare / Landfare is not included in the package of course, but bus transfers from Dapitan to nearby Mindanao cities are provided free.

Tags: Dakak, Dapitan, Travelogue

Our Nosy Landlady

Flisha — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:16:00 +0000

Where I’m staying in Dapitan, there is a very very nosy landlady. So nosy I’m thinking of installing security systems.

She often visits our room when we’re away, and doesn’t tell us in advance – or ever.

One time my boyfriend and I were coming home early in the afternoon, we caught her in our room sweeping the floor. I was appalled, because I had left my laptop and camera in the room. We let it pass because she had a convenient excuse, but I was very careful not to leave any valuable stuff inside the room anymore.

Another time, I was in Manila and Gim wasn’t in the room, she went inside to change the window shades. Hwa–? Gim noticed it because he had deliberately set sheets wrong side up, and when he came back, the sheet were rightside up.

A few weeks ago, she was making up all sorts of reasons to come inside the room again, like she needed to change our bed sheets (we can do that ourselves, thank you very much).

I don’t understand people who have that compulsion to snoop, to check up on other people’s lives, to want to see our room and the things we have. So I had Gim install an extra lock on our door so she wouldn’t be able to come in any time she pleased anymore. Then we left for a week to go to Zamboanga.

When we came back, she was quite angry, demanding that we remove the lock. She said that her husband needed to frequently come in to check the wirings, in case there were leaks when it rained. It was totally another lame excuse, because in the six months I’ve stayed there, there hasn’t been a leak.

I had to go to Manila for a few days so I left Gim to talk to her. He tried to tell her that we valued our privacy, and that we don’t appreciate people being in our apartment when we’re not there. Our landlady said that we should respect her rights to check the room, because it was still her property.

I had half a mind to go confront her myself. I hate confrontation, but I never back down, and I never lose. I always get what I want, especially when I’m in the right. I told Gim to wait for until I came back, so I would be the one to give our landlady a piece of my mind.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to, since apparently Gim and our landlady came to a compromise. We could keep our lock while we were there. But if we left for Zamboanga or Manila, or wherever, we had to leave the apartment open in case of an emergency. (Does a leak constitute an emergency???)

I still don’t like the arrangement. I’ve been a very good tenant. I pay the rent on time every month. The apartment’s very very clean and well-kept. We’re not noisy, we don’t create problems. So why does she have to get on my nerves like that?? But whatevs, I let it rest. I hate problems. The next time we go away for some time, I’ll be sure to bring everything valuable with me.

What landlord problems have you encountered?

Tags: Dapitan, Manila, Zamboanga

Fishnets in Pasil

Flisha — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 21:04:00 +0000

There is an island called Pasil, in Dapitan, Philippines.

It’s right under the bridge that connects two major islands in Dapitan. Passing through that highway everytime we crossed to Dipolog, he and I would always look down over Pasil and marvel at how beautiful and mysterious the place was.

One day we rented a motorcycle from our neighbor and went on a joyride towards Pasil, a place marked by fisherfolk and fishing nets.

Have you ever seen anything like it? Chances are, you haven’t. Most fishing nets are thrown over deep waters in the middle of the sea. But Dapitan has a little something special. It boasts a bountiful sea, and shallow waters that stretch as far as the eye can see. So fishermen plant their nets near the shore, and still get plentiful catch.

Here’s a landscape view of the mysterious fishnet.

I had always wanted to see these bamboo nets up close. And this time I got the chance. We saw a fisherman tending to his net, and approached him to ask if we could take photos. Thankfully, he obliged. This is a photo of him inside his net.

I suppose it’s not clear how this net is structured to catch fish. Perhaps the picture below can offer a better explanation. That’s my boyfriend at the entrance of the net. The entrance is quite narrow, and fish swim through this entrance. Then the net goes zigzaggy, and the fish can no longer find their way out, and thus become “ensnared” in the big fishing net. Late in the afternoon, Manong Fisherman goes inside with a smaller net and gathers up his catch to sell in the markets nearby.

It’s very interesting, being that up close to the fishing net. There’s a lot to see. Many different kinds of fishes. The type you see only on your plate, but at that moment I was seeing them swimming in the ocean. Other sea life also get ensnared in the net, like this hermit crab crawling up a bamboo pole.

A lot of leaves also get caught inside the net, so it can get a bit dirty. And it’s up to Manong Fisherman to clean his net up.

We got to chat with him a little. Well, my boyfriend did. Because he speaks Visayan, while I can only speak Chavacano and Tagalog, neither of which are of any use in Dapitan. Fortunately, I can understand their language so I just listened and took photographs. Here he is laying his day’s catch on the sandy shore.

Most of what he has in his net are leaves and little pieces of trash. Manong Fisherman, it turns out, is not a native of Dapitan. He is from Ipil, a nearby province. Ipil is much nearer to my hometown of Zamboanga. So he must understand Chavacano, even if only a little bit. But I’m too shy and don’t speak up. (Always have been shy all my life. Some people mistake it for snobbishness.)

Finding out he’s from Ipil makes a little bit more sense. He looks Chinese and I have not seen many Chinese people in Dapitan. But there are many in Zamboanga, the local businessmen. It is a bit strange to see a Chinese looking fisherman.

Manong sifts through the day’s catch. He removes the fish that aren’t meant to be eaten, like the few pufferfish he caught. He also removes the small fishes and returns them to sea. He mentions he has a daughter, and she is working overseas. He sounds mighty proud of her. I wonder why then he fishes. But perhaps he enjoys the fishing rather than needs the income. I would like to think it’s like that. But of course we don’t ask.

Here are some of the fish he keeps. Mmm, looks good enough to grill.

(Click on all the pictures for bigger resolutions!)

Tags: Dapitan, Photography, Zamboanga

Guard Dog

Flisha — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:10:00 +0000

He took me on a joyride in Dapitan once, and we entered through the unpaved roads leading to rural communities along the coast.

This day led us to a rice paddy, a common, nevertheless breathtaking, sight in Philippine provinces.

On a bank across the pond walked an old farmer, in ragged clothes and a straw hat. Behind him followed his faithful dog, tail wagging, happily panting. The man signaled his dog to stay, then boarded the motorcycle waiting for him at the end of the dirt road.

The dog stopped, then obediently sat down. Then it set its shoulders back, sitting straight and proud, dutifully assuming its post on the narrow bank.

Tags: Dapitan, Photography

Fallen Tree

Flisha — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:36:00 +0000

I am experimenting with new ways of presenting my photos. I think my photos look a lot more professional when they’re elegantly bordered and identified.

Initially I was just going for a watermark, to prevent any possible stealing of photos. (Not that it’s ever happened to me personally, to my knowledge anyways, but it’s a common story in my part of the world.)

But I quite dislike watermarks because they tend to ruin photos. And they give off a negative attitude, like a whiff of “I know you’re gonna steal my photo so I’m going to uglify it so you can’t use it.” I’m not dissing the ones who use it, of course. I know a lot of photobloggers only do the watermarking as a last resort, and even prominent bloggers have had to resort to it just to prevent thieves (and yet oftentimes it still doesn’t work).

So, anyways, I’ve seen this kind of bordering done on a few photo blogs so I decided to do the same. I think my photos look majorly prettified.

It’s a photo of a fallen tree along the coast in Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte, Philippines. Mysteriously, the tree is still alive even though it’s been beaten down by wind and sea.

This photo is uncropped and unedited, except for the resizing and the added borders (I used FastStone Photo Resizer because it’s a very small application and it doesn’t eat up a lot of resources).

Tags: Blogger, Dapitan, Photography, Zamboanga

Yesterday I Swam

Flisha — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 12:19:00 +0000

Gim and I were supposed to head on home to Zamboanga, but we couldn’t go home without once using our newly bought snorkel gear. So we postponed the trip to today and happily went to Dakak Resort (except that we overslept and had to postpone it again to tomorrow).

Habal-habals (motorcycles that carry passengers on rough terrain for a fee) in Dapitan charge an exorbitant P200 ($5) per head for a 15-minute round-trip ride to Dakak Resort. I insisted that my boyfriend find me a cheaper ride.

So he asked a local tricycle (a passenger three-wheeler common in the Philippines) driver whether anyone was offering a motorcycle for rent. The driver answered his friend had one, and he charged us P200 for the use. Great, Gim said, and took him up on the offer.

Later the driver insisted he himself drive the motorcycle. Much later we learned he wasn’t used to carrying two people on a motorcycle. Much much later we learned he wasn’t used to driving on rough terrain. Nearing the end of our horrible, horrible, life-threatening trip because he was a horrible, horrible driver and a horrible, horrible person, he stated he had never been to Dakak Resort and it was a good thing we knew the way, because he didn’t.

So yesterday I swam. I have never swam in my life. I don’t know how. And I’ve always been scared of drowning. But with the aid of the snorkel, I breathed underwater. With my masks, I saw clearly underwater. And with my Gim’s encouragement and teaching, I learned to float on my belly and swim the breaststroke.

To celebrate my second life (or third or fourth, I don’t know, I’ve so nearly lost my life too many times I can’t remember), I needed to swim.

I never knew it could be so easy. But it was! And so fun! I wanted to do it for hours and hours! And we did. Gim took me to the reefs and we snorkeled over corals of so many colors! Green and red and orange and violet! And we saw sea anemones moving beautifully and a clown fish just like Nemo hiding inside! And then the father clownfish saw us and stared at us angrily and tried to get us to leave, haha! It was so cute, their little family. I saw rainbow colored eels and I saw flat fishes and fishes that looked like stone and fishes that looked like sand.

And the whole time I was swimming all over the reefs, with Gim protectively swimming by my side.

It was such a wonderful day, yesterday. I swam.

P.S. Thank you, Gim.

P.P.S. For the return trip, Gim had our horrible motorycle driver bring a friend and an extra motorcyle so Gim would take me home himself. I no longer wanted to ever ride with that horrible man on the helm. We paid the same amount as if we had rode the habal-habal. I hope that horrible man will have terrible karma for his horrible driving!

Tags: Dakak, Dapitan, Travelogue, Zamboanga

Halo-Halo on a Hot Day

Flisha — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 12:19:00 +0000

Here in the Philippines, we have a sweet treat called Halo-halo. Halo in Filipino means “mix”. Halo-halo is a mix of ingredients such as beans, flan, fruits, sugar, milk and ice, then topped with ice cream, oatmeal and sometimes a cherry.

It’s a favorite Filipino dessert, and the best halo-halos are the ones made by hand by your parents on a hot Sunday afternoon when you were a child. Save that, there are always the food stalls and restaurants.

Here in Dapitan, the best halo-halo is served in Jana’s Place on Josephine Bracken street (named after Jose Rizal’s lady friend).

Gim and I ate this treat a few days ago, when it was stuffy warm all over Dapitan. It sure refreshed us for a good ten minutes.

P.S. When I went to Japan, they had a similar dessert. They called it Haro-haro. LOL!

Tags: Dapitan, Foods, Japan, Photography

A Strange Place I’m In

Flisha — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 07:55:00 +0000

In Dapitan, where I’m currently at, the world seems full of old people and children. That’s what this city is made of.

Kids playing CounterStrike and DOTA in the Internet shop.

Old people drivers on tricycles waiting for passengers.

Toddlers sitting by the shore making castles on the sand.

Vendors selling secondhand clothes, seafood and wares.

Infants screaming, infants gurgling, infants cooing.

Grandparents aboard motorcycles lugging grandchildren.

Life seems all about the elders and the youngsters.

Where are the mommies and the daddies?

Tags: Dapitan

Turning Domestic

Flisha — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 07:28:00 +0000

My academics are done, woohoo! Now all I’ve left to do to complete my Masters is my thesis software and paper. Easier said than done, but for now I’m treating myself to a relaxing vacation!

I’ve left Manila and settled down (pretend) with my boyfriend in Dapitan. It’s been so fun pretending to be husband and wife (hehe). I’ll be staying a month or two here before I head on home to Zamboanga, so I thought it would be much cheaper to buy appliances for cooking rather than to eat out all the time.

We bought a rice cooker (Php600 or $13), an oven toaster (Php500 or $11), a water heater (Php200 or $4), kitchen utensils (about Php1k or $22) and a Petron Gasulette (a single-burner gas stove at Php1700 or $38). My boyfriend’s a great cook so he’s been cooking a lot of great food, like breaded pork (yum!), corned beef with onion and potatoes (mmm!) and calamares (needs work). I’m so looking forward to the future, when he’s finally a doctor and we can buy a house and everything! Hehe.

When we’re not cooking, we’re watching movies. The last movie we watched was What Happens in Vegas starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. It wasn’t funny, I wouldn’t recommend watching it. And do people really win 3 million dollars via a slot machine?! In spite of the lousy script, boy that movie made me want to visit Vegas!

I know it’s kind of too far in the future to plan. (Hello, I can barely afford to eat in a restaurant, let along purchase a ticket to fly halfway around the world.) But for what it’s worth, I’ve scouted out a Las Vegas strip map so I won’t get lost. My boyfriend can tell you how bad I am at directions. I once hopped on a jeepney with Gim, confident I knew the landmarks of Malate, and we spent an hour on the vehicle not knowing where to get off. I literally need a travel book just to roam around Manila, what more Vegas. (Am I silly to be planning this nonsense?)

In other news, I’ve been bumming around, sleeping late, enjoying the sun and sea, and looking for a swim teacher (because I would like to learn). Oh if life were always this easy.

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Post tags: Cameron Diaz, Manila, p1, Zamboanga

Tags: Cameron Diaz, Dapitan, Manila, p1, Zamboanga

Sunday Kamayan, Dapitan’s Best Kept Secret

Flisha — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 10:31:00 +0000

On a Sunday in Dapitan, there’s no better place to eat lunch than Kamayan ni Manay’s (literal translation: Eat-with-your-bare-hands at Manay‘s, Manay being a general term for an older lady).

Every Sunday, Kamayan holds an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch that costs only P250 ($6) per person. This includes a lunch of lechon (roasted pork), chicken, crab, shrimps, talaba (oysters), vegetables, fruits and salads. Dessert is fruits and ice cream (yummy!). Oh and don’t forget the bottomless iced tea. It’s a fiesta fit for a king. In my opinion, no other all-you-can-eat buffet can ever top this sumptous feast from Kamayan (and believe me, I’ve tried a lot of other Sunday eat-all-you-can’s!).

For a restaurant in a pretty small town, Kamayan is packed during Sundays! The buffet lunch starts at 10:30 AM but by 10:00 AM, there’s already a line of people outside waiting to get in. It’s that good.

Without further ado, here come the pictures!

My first plate. I got a lot of fried stuff. Fried shrimps, fried talaba, fried chicken. Some salad (I thought maybe the healthy would cancel out the unhealthy). And lots of lechon! I was lechon-starved when I came to Dapitan. (In Zamboanga, Sunday usually equals to a lunch of lechon. And I hadn’t had that in months because I was exiled in Manila!)

My second plate. I realized the crab was really, really, really good! So I got a whole lot of it. The crabs were small but boy they were bursting with meat. Gim and I surmised they must have come from a farm, because each and every crab we ate was really fat and tasty. It was so much fun eating them, unlike the time we ate crab in Dakak and felt like we were mining for gold in a gold-starved cave! I also got a lot of chopsuey and, erm, took a lot of quail eggs (too bad for the later guests, hehehe!).

Doesn’t the crab look divine?

This crab reminds me of a ninja. A very tasty ninja.

Bottomless lemon iced tea, yum! And the waiters were very prompt! They filled our glasses even when we didn’t ask. Not like other places (especially in Manila) that offer bottomless iced tea and then hide their waiters afterwards, or look at you like you’re being very greedy for consuming more than two glasses of their supposedly limitless drink.

Even our trash looked good, haha. We had two piles of this after. Full of crab and oysters. Loved the crab so very much. I got around six halves or so. I shared them with Gim, I swear! Hahaha. I didn’t like the raw oysters that much, though… I don’t like anything raw. The fried shrimps tasted more of flour than shrimp, so did the fried oysters. But who cares?? There was a lot of crab!!! Hehehehe.

More trash. And still a lot of crab behind the trash, hahaha. I really enjoyed the crab. Did I mention that already? Hahaha. I went there for the lechon, and the lechon was great. But the crab was better. Haha.

Awww, and we’re done eating. I ate so much crab I couldn’t finish my chopsuey. Too bad because I happen to love chopsuey. I ate all the quail eggs, though. Heheh. And do you notice that in every picture, the glass of iced tea is always full? See? What did I tell you about the great service? I must have downed 4 or 5 glasses of that stuff.

I wish I could have taken more pictures, especially of the individual courses. But I was too excited to try all the food. And to cram as much crab down my throat before it ran out. Hehe. I am such a glutton. I don’t have any pictures here, by the way, because Gim ate with his bare hands!!! Well, it was Kamayan. And I did benefit from it because he was able to crack the crab and give me the meat. But that also meant he couldn’t handle the camera. Poor me.

I, meanwhile, hate using my bare hands to eat. Even in a Kamayan restaurant (a lot of restaurants in the Philippines are Kamayan‘s, I guess because it’s cheaper to just use banana leaves instead of washing utensils, haha). Don’t get me wrong, I do enjoy feasting with my bare hands. Food tastes much better that way, I’ve noticed, hahaha. My mom used to feed me and my sisters like that before. And sometimes I can get Gim to feed me like that, too, when I’m feeling babyish. Haha. I just would rather keep my hands clean so I can use my camera, get my wallet, wipe my face, etc. Hehe.

Gim got really tired after eating, as you can see in the pictures. Hehe. Our tummies were full to bursting. He’s getting the baboy (pig) syndrome here. It’s where he feels lazy and sleepy after eating a huge meal, just like a pig. Haha.

And here’s him asking me, “And how are you?” And I answer, “I’m fine, thank you Gim!!!” I’m thanking him because he introduced me to this Kamayan place. But we didn’t know about the Sunday all-you-can-eat buffet until we bumped into one of his doctors (teachers) one Sunday around noontime and he told us we were too late for the buffet. We were very disappointed that day, because we saw all the empty food trays, haha. That’s when we decided to go there again, much much earlier, during my last Sunday (before I would come back to Manila).

Here’s how the place looks. Very simple. Very native-looking. Wooden chairs and tables. Flower arrangements, roses and ferns, on each table.

No airconditioning, just electric fans. And big pretty balls of light above.

And look it’s our bill! For everything we ate, just… 500 pesos! Yay! Hehehe. See, food is really cheap in Dapitan. That’s why I love going there. And then whenever I go back I’m significantly heavier. Hehehe.

Okay, I’d like to insert some pictures of our food that Sunday we went there and didn’t get to try the buffet since it was already past twelve. (The buffet ends at 1PM formally, but after 11AM, the must-try trays like the crab and lechon are already gone. So it’s important to go early.)

So anyway, for that particular Sunday, we ordered sizzling squid (my all-time favorite, and it was the best I’d ever tasted), spring rolls (turned out to be just a reworded fried lumpia, and we thought it was going to be something new hahaha) and pork ribs (mmm, just okay, not as good as I’d hoped). Lots of garlic rice, yum. I like garlic rice better than fried rice. I’m a glutton for anything garlic, I swear. Oh and a mango shake for me. It was really, really tasty, that mango shake.

Here’s a closer look at the lumpia and ribs. I like my lumpia fresh rather than fried, but these rolls weren’t bad. They were pretty good, really. Filled with vegetables and shrimps, I think. But the ribs seemed a bit out of place in our meal, so I didn’t enjoy them much. I mostly left them for Gimmi.

I focused on the heavenly squid. Yum. These were grilled very lightly, just the way I like them. And cleaned very well, too. No ink whatsoever. (Some places serve it with the ink, you have to tell them not to. It’s a delicacy, I guess.) What made this squid so much better than the others I had tasted was the garlic. Lots of garlic all over my squid, wow! And lots of tomatoes and onions filling the hollow, yum! Definitely must try this if you’re at Kamayan.

A closer view of the squid. Looks good, huh? It was very very good. I loved the tentacles, too. I’m not sure which part of the squid I love best, the tentacles or the body. Hmm, I love them both the same! (But I don’t like the head.)

The mango shake tasted very fresh and milky, and definitely not watery. Also one of the best mango shakes I’d ever tasted. It tasted like a homemade mango shake, that’s how I would describe it. ‘Coz when you’re at home making a shake yourself, you place a lot of milk and mango, right? You don’t scrimp on the ingredients. Well, that’s how it tasted. Loved it!

And while waiting for our food, what did Gim and I do? Well, what we love to…

Take pictures of ourselves! Hahahaha! Oh by the way, if you want to go to Kamayan ni Manay‘s, it’s right beside Gloria de Dapitan. Happy eating!

Tags: Dapitan, Foods, Manila, Travelogue, Zamboanga

Dapitan’s Glory

Flisha — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:15:00 +0000

When in Dapitan, you will not fail to visit Gloria de Dapitan, the tiny city’s prime spot for leisure-seeking travellers. You often find me here, as there isn’t really any other place to hang out in Dapitan when you’re not looking to sun or swim.

Gloria de Dapitan (named for the country’s current president, which is a shame) includes several restaurants, a few boutique shops, an Internet shop, some bauble-selling stalls, a snack stall (french fries and ice cream), a bowling place, an impressive fountain (for a provincial town) and in the center of it all, a cock-fighting gymnasium (apparently the Congressman, who owns the entire Gloria and most of Dapitan, is a big fan).

Gim and I go to Gloria everyday to access the Internet. The whole place is a wifi zone, and anybody can access the wifi for free. The girl at the airconditioned Internet shop lets me sit inside while doing my Internet rounds. I try to make her charge me the regular Internet rate but she flatly refuses (she lets me surf and charge my laptop for free) so I sometimes bring her some sweets in exchange for her generosity hehehe. Sometimes she won’t receive those too.

The food in Dapitan is superbly inexpensive, so Gim and I often visit Gloria to get dinner. (Most shops don’t open before 2pm so it’s hard to find lunch there.) Our favorite restaurants are Tapas & Beer and a pizza place (gosh I forgot the name).

At Tapas & Beer, better get an order of tapa (dried beef, fried in soy sauce). It’s very tasty, and the onions are very crisp. Also try their calamares, or fried squid rings. They’re one of the best I’ve ever tasted, because the squid rings are very thick and tender at the same time. Gim loves crispy pata (a leg of pork salted and boiled then left in the air to dry for an entire day, then deep fried) and we found it in the menu so we ordered that one time, and Gim loved it so much he left nothing but bone (the ones he couldn’t chew enough to swallow hahaha).

The pizza shop in Gloria is not to be missed. The shop owners come from Switzerland and the ingredients in their pizza definitely prove it. Regular servings (good for three or four but Gim and I can finish one in 30 minutes) cost only P200 ($4) while family servings cost P300 ($6). Extra toppings cost P30 (less than $1) and a request for thick crust costs P30 as well (you will want the thick crust for sure!). Trust me when I say they are VERY VERY good.

Most of the pizzas are mozarella-and-meat-heavy, just the way Gim and I like it. We love sausage and often ask for extra toppings of it. The pizza is cooked right in front of you if you want to watch. The contraption where the pizza is cooked is bizarrely small, but the server says it cost almost a hundred thousand pesos (roughly $2000). Whoa, but if that’s their secret I want one too hehe!

Have a look at the menu, I took a shot hehehe.

And here is Gim patiently waiting for our pizza on the counter. It takes about 15-30 minutes for the pizza to cook (it’s not a fast-food place) so when the pizza gets served you’re sure to be starving heheheh.

It’s a great eat.

Gloria is a cheap place to eat for city people, but there are many more spots in Dapitan where you can get cheaper and tastier food, especially when it comes to seafood.

But that’s for another post.

Tags: Dapitan

Hammocks in Dakak

Flisha — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 11:29:00 +0000

Gim and I spent my birthday (August 15) in Dakak Resort, Dapitan. It was a beautifully cloudy day. (A sunny day on a Philippine beach equals a really, really bad sunburn.) We took a dip in the water first thing when we got there. Ate a hearty lunch after hours of playing in the waves. Went back the water. And then enjoyed swinging in the hammock in between.

I love the hammocks in Dapitan. Very comfy and they offer a great, uninterrupted view of the horizon.

They hang from the branches of the trees that ply the shoreline, and they’re the perfect place to rest and sleep or just enjoy the view.

See how much fun I’m having up there??? Hehehe.

Here is Gim resting underneath a tree. And there are his new slippers that I gave that he lost in a Dumaguete beach. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Hehehehehe. At least he has a photo.

Here is me not wanting to leave Dakak yet. The Dakak management is calling us to the van that will take us back home, but I’m too comfortable to get up! I don’t want to go!!!!

And here’s the breathtaking view from our hammocks.

See? No wonder it is sooo hard to leave Dakak. And of course, here is the venerated hammock.

Hehehehe. I want to go back!

Tags: Dakak, Dapitan, Travelogue

Dapitan Boulevard

Flisha — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 07:43:00 +0000

In the Philippines, developed coastal roads are often called “boulevards” like the Cawa-Cawa Boulevard of Zamboanga City, the Roxas Boulevard of Manila, the “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” of Dipolog (okay, Gim and I named that a few years ago when we sat there after a quarrel on the last day of our vacation hahaha).

In the Dapitan, they have the “Sunset Boulevard” because this piece of shore does really deliver those romantic sunsets. I haven’t got a sunset image this year yet (it’s the rainy season) but hopefully I will get one on a rare cloudless afternoon.

Still, here’s a shot of the shore from a dilapidated cottage where Gim and I ate a tub of store-bought ice cream on a cold, cloudy day. Hehehe, that’s one of our favorite pastimes.

And a few shots of me… hahaha.

This is back when I had long hair… Oh I am starting to miss it. (Right now I have short hair, and dark red, splotchy, peeling skin. Waaahhhh.)

Tags: Dapitan, Manila, Travelogue, Zamboanga

Sunset Dinner at Port Orient

Flisha — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 11:38:00 +0000

Living in big busy Manila is fantastically convenient. All your needs are a walk or phone call away.

I live in Katipunan, right in front of the country’s top university, Ateneo de Manila University. Around my place are National Bookstore (where I get my chick lit for whenever I am depressed), a whole lot of fast food joints like McDonalds, Jollibee’s (not just one but two branches!), KFC, Chowking, Kenny Rogers Roasters, Teriyaki Boy and many more, Villman’s (for my gadget needs), Rustan’s and Shoppersville (for my weekly groceries), BPI, Banco de Oro, Megalink and many other banks (for my banking needs!). And SM North, one of the world’s top ten biggest malls, is a 30 minute taxi ride away.

But all that convenience doesn’t buy any love from me. I am and will always be a country bumpkin. I love fresh clean air (as opposed to the smoke and dirt of neverendingly-busy highways), wide blue skies (as opposed to polluted violet ones full of skyscrapers), stars (can’t see them in Manila), trees, rivers and oceans (I don’t even know if there’s any accessible to the big city). I love nature. I am most comfortable without any frills, just give me cheap food and a great view, and I am happy.

To fulfill this need, Gim took me dinner at Port Orient, a shoreside shack of a restaurant here in Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte, Mindanao, Philippines, where I am blissfully vacationing (in spite of a terribly sunburnt achy face).

We ordered barbecue – lots of them! Pork barbecue, our favorite, mmm! And also liver barbecue, which Gim loves but I hate. And barbecued innards, which we both love! Heheheh. I’ll not say which inner parts, you may be grossed out haha. And we ordered around 5 puso‘s, which is rice wrapped and cooked in triangle-shaped banana leaves. Plus a liter of Pop Cola, a local softdrink like Coca Cola.

Our table was situated right on the shore, and our sandals embedded in sand. A few feet away, right in front of us, played local children and crashed ocean waves. Have a look-see.

Here’s me and Gim playing cute for the camera. Hehehehe.

I am not sunburnt here. You’ll see how I look in my later posts. (I will be horribly fattened and sunburnt but still very happy hahaha.) Here’s what’s looking right back at us:

And a closer view at the pretty clouds.

It was a wonderful day.

Tags: Dapitan, Manila, Photography, Travelogue, Zamboanga

Travelling Mindanao

Flisha — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 11:05:00 +0000

Arrived in Dipolog, Mindanao safe and thrilled. Met by boyfriend Gim and rode a tricycle (a quirky three-wheeled transportation common in the Philippines) towards Dapitan. Took over boyfriend’s temporary quarters and made it messy, as I am wont to do.

Dapitan (Visayan for “a place often visited”) is beautiful as always. It is the rainy season, so tourists are few, but foreigners in retirement many. The sky is clouded many a sunset, and the ocean roils angrily all day. But oceanside barbecues still taste divine and walks on the beach still romantic.

So far Gim and I have been enjoying the food mightily. I’ve gained a lot of pounds doing nothing but eat all day — lunchtime chopsuey (freshly cooked vegetables in a creamy salty sauce), pork and beef steaks, iced teas and orange juices and Cokes and Pepsis, afternoon raspberry and blueberry cheesecakes and hazelnut capuccino, and dinnertime garlic sausage pizza, crispy pata (crispy fried pork) and a many many more.

Tomorrow I turn 26 and I am spending it on a white sand beach resort called Dakak. Next week Gim and I will be visiting another white sand beach called Piñahon. We’ll try to reach the beautiful beaches of Aliguay and Silinog if funds and time allow.

We will also be trekking to Cagayan de Oro and engaging in some whitewater rafting and ziplining. Also visiting Camiguin to enjoy White Island, Katibawasan Falls, Hot Springs and tours.

Later in the month will be visiting Dumaguete and hopefully seeing some dolphins.

I have so many pictures I wish to upload but darndarndarn I don’t have a cardreader! Gim’s laptop doesn’t have a built-in one either. So I will have to wait until I get to Cagayan de Oro and buy a card reader there. Am excited to show you all the food I’ve eaten hahaha. And of course the sights.

Until then…

Tags: Dakak, Dapitan, Dipolog, Travelogue